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We reproduce below a text written by the “Commissione de Lavoro” de Roma in Italy that the comrades of the ICT have published in their international press. It seems to us that the proposals put forwards by this workers commission rightly present the orientations to fulfil if the present movements such as the “indignados” want to develop and set out a true perspective of fight and victorious confrontation against the bourgeoisie. In particular, the methods, the forms, the slogans and demands put forwards here oppose categorically and from a class point of view to the orientations and slogans that all the regroupments and organisations so-called spontaneous, especially those using the internet networks and on which the bourgeois medias make so much publicity praising their democratic and... bourgeois virtue.
We thus support the efforts of this “workers commision” and this document. It is the concrete realization of the class orientations the comrades of the ICT have put forwards in the previous text of this bulletin : the “indignados” do lack of true class anger.
The FICL, June 22th, 2011.
We publish below a document drawn up by the Rome “Labor Commission”, as part of the movement calling itself “Italian revolution — real democracy now!”. We have already published an article on the broader international movement of the “Indignados”: The “indignados” on the streets, for now lacking real proletarian anger
As the Labour Commission of the Roman movement of the Italian Revolution we identify the crisis as the motor force of the movement of Spanish indignados and other European countries. This is demonstrated by the attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class carried out by governments of all shades, from Berlusconi to Zapatero. We therefore believe that the question of labour should be placed at the centre of the debate in the movement both in terms of analysis and action, because we think that without the expansion of the movement to all the exploited who pay for the crisis of the capitalist system of production the movement will have no real impact on society.
The commission aims to carry out the following work:
Organizing data collection on all major disputes pending in the workplace, redundancies, the numbers of unemployed and precarious workers.
Analysing conditions of exploitation in all these sectors and the deterioration of living conditions.
Developing forms of agitation which can extend our meetings in these sectors, as the Puerta del Sol assembly did.
In previous discussions we considered the causes of exploitation were linked to the conflict between capital and labour and the fact that the capitalist mode of production is now in crisis, obsolete and outdated, it is no longer able to offer anything progressive to the new generations. We also believe that crises are a fact of life under capitalism and that it is necessary to overcome the crisis of capitalism.
We want to collect data on pending legislation, on the laws that govern our working conditions which are more insecure, exhausting, a form of blackmail, and the numerical data that describe how many workers and their families there are and how they live today in Italy.
Conditions of Exploitation
We want to collect eye witness accounts and stories that describe the real conditions of exploitation experienced daily by workers, especially young people but not just them, starting with those who are reading this.
Forms of Agitation to Extend the Assembly Movement to the World of Labour
We believe it is necessary to extend our meetings to all workers, including temporary workers, the unemployed and all those sectors that are paying for the crisis of capitalism. In order to do this we have to start by denouncing the real conditions of exploitation experienced in the workplace.
We tried to reverse the logic through which the “issue of work” is addressed by trade unions, political parties and various politicians. Too often we have seen movements start from their policy proposals (and promptly split over them), from a citizen’s income, to the European wage, from socially useful work to less work, work for all etc.. the policy proposed has always just been put to the workers taking no account of their conditions, almost as if the worker were only useful to support this or that proposal. We do not want to discuss this or that plan to solve the problems of this system (we will never get out of it!), We would like to address the question of exploitation and fragmentation of workers in order to invite them to unite and fight.
We want to put the workers
at the centre of our concerns inviting them to rise up against the
conditions of misery and exploitation that they daily live through.
For this the agitational slogans that we use are simple:
- no to
starvation wages;
- no to the lack of security, accidents and
deaths at work;
- no to the speed-ups and exhausting workloads;
- no to job insecurity, flexiblity, to being used and thrown
away;
- no to layoffs and unemployment;
- no to high prices;
- yes to the collective struggle to defend our conditions;
-
yes to a real struggle for better living and working conditions.
We agitate with the slogan that the real struggle is in our workplaces, and in our neighborhoods! Only then can we extend the fight across different sectors of society, from public and private, industrial and commercial etc..
On the mode of struggle there is little to be invented, all-out strikes, pickets, solidarity and active support of various disputes are a necessity, up to occupation of firms that are shutting down as well as roadblocks. All these are part of the history of the workers’ struggles and they have much to teach us. In general we support all forms of mobilisation aimed at blocking production and the flow of goods and, therefore, profit. Finally, we believe that it is the workers themselves who know what the most effective forms of struggle in every situation are. In this sense all we have to do is encourage them, support them, and to defend of their interests and not the real interest of this or that trade union or political group.
We think that the only
form of organisation that will allow workers to stand on their own
two feet, stimulating their capacity to fight, is that of assemblies.
Assemblies from below which:
- overcome the divisions and
differences of race, gender, class, levels and occupations, between
workers;
- unite employed and unemployed;
- overcome the
tendency to delegate the defence of our interests to trade unionists
and politicians; - make decisions, or rather decide the forms,
procedures, and the timing of mobilisation. They decide whether or
not to accept the proposals of others.
Our viewpoint is about defending ourselves from the violent attack that the bosses are unleashing, about escaping isolation, about transforming the individual fight into a single, large, collective struggle. We have to escape inertia to begin to take our lives back into our own hands.
Only by transforming our hardship and everyone’s personal discomfort into a social problem, can we force the system to offer solutions which suit it (we can accept them or reject them) or, more likely, to declare that it cannot meet our demands, thus proving its failure.
The present work is a contribution, constantly updated, to the central assembly. The labour commission is open to anyone who wants to participate, we invite all to participate in online discussion by subscribing to the mailing list: commlavoro_italianrevolution@googlegroups.com
The e-mail address of the commission is: commissione.lavoro@email.it
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